The Jack in the Box

     The Jack -in-the-box.

     My daughter Emma has one of those toys. The music plays as the handle is turned round, suddenly and without warning the lid pops and the clown jumps at you. Hers is a newer version that is already worn out and barely pops up. They don't make them like they used to.

     I was looking at it and thinking how our world is like the outside of that box. Every one in the world can see the outside of the box but few can see the inside. Our lives are a slow turning of the handle. Day to day plays "the daily grind", luling us slowly towards the grave. One day though, one day, Pop! Suddenly the box is gone. Not only the box, but all the world. All of it gone. One second rain drizzling down the clowns box and the next moment staring into the face of love, and He is a stranger. Sorry, he says, I don't know you. But don't you know everyone? I've held out my hand to you, he says; every day, all the years of your life, yet you refused me. I don't know you!

     Suddenly angels appear around you. They are glowing, radiating from the love of Jesus. They begin to lead you away. Where are we going? Can't I stay with Him? Ive never felt such love. The angels are silent as they take you further. The only warmth of God's love you feel now is from the angels. A stark emptiness overtakes existence. In these eternally long few moments you understand that hell isn't fire and brimstone, hot pokers and such nonsense you saw in movies, but rather the emptiness in everything. The absolute nothingness with God's love removed. Feelings more empty than emptiness, loneliness beyond solitude, pain you never drempt engulfs. The ever increasing intensity of sheer hell, intensifying, more.......